by Drew Crow
Quick Draw Bubble Wars
Apr 18, 2012 at 12:40 pm in post by Drew Crow
Things you’ll need:
- A pot of bubble solution with a bubble ring (just one of the cheap ones will do, but it has to blow bubbles pretty well)
- Two people
- Wits of steel
- A good poker face
- The ability to inhale as stealthily as a ninja
- Bow to your opponent and sit facing them.
- Ceremoniously open your pot of bubbles and extract the bubble blower ring.
- Flip a coin to decide who gets to hold the bubble blower first.
- Dip the blower.
- Arrange yourselves so that your faces are approximately 12 inches apart at the lips.
- Place the blower equidistantly between the pursed lips of you and your opponent.
- Look your opponent in the eye and try your best to stare them out, whilst at the same time look for any signs that they are about to exhale sharply through their poised lips.
- At some point, one player must break the stalemate and blow (but not too hard) in order to attempt to propel a bubble towards the other. If this is done successfully, the player who gets a bubble in the face loses and the one who fired the shot wins.
- Swap the bubble blower to the other player and steel yourself for another round.
- Keep playing until your nerves just can’t take the tension any more.
- Carefully store your bubbles ready for the next war…
by April Arrg
The Miracle Mile ARG NEEDS YOUR HELP
Apr 12, 2012 at 10:19 am in post by April Arrg
April
by Nathan Maton
Want to play a game to improve the world and work better in teams?
Mar 16, 2012 at 8:43 pm in post by Nathan Maton
Last Friday we launched our Kickstarter campaign for something very near and dear to my heart, getting youth activists to be more successful.
Research shows that initial success makes you more likely to volunteer / advocate for civic change again, so their initial success is important yet right now not very high. We think games can teach them in a medium they already use (99% of teens play games) and in ways that can teach behavior change.
Please consider backing my project. We’ve got 100 backers already and approximately $4k of 16k raised. They say if you can get to 33% within 1/3 of your project time (10 days for us) that you’re over 90% likely to have your campaign succeed and they’ll promote it for you. Here’s the link: http://j.mp/zR3TJB
Polymorph – a game about elements and properties
Sep 25, 2011 at 1:30 am in post by Isidor Cardenas
Polymorph is a 3D puzzle game that involves controlling a ball capable of absorbing elements (fire, water, ice, etc) and properties (luminance, brittleness, permeability, etc).
You can play it here (you will need to download the unity web player to play it):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42951638/Polymorph.html
How to win: The goal of the game is to get to the next stage by completing various obstacles with a combination of elements and/or properties.
History: I began this project in Feb 2011 as a required submission to finish UP ITTC’s Game Dev I short course One of the lectures discussed was that Game Objects in Unity can get Components from other Game Objects.
Based from that basic principle I decided to make use of a Unity template sphere which could absorb components from existing game objects it comes into contact with (intentionally or unintentionally). Obstacles function the other way around – anything the polymorph ball comes into contact with, given the right element, is destroyed/altered. Properties can be acquired that could help you or make matters worse depending on the situation.
I gave it the name Polymorph since the ball can morph into many elements/properties. And no, the ball does not turn into a sheep or any other critter….yet.
Currently i’m the only one developing this…and this game is far from what i would say complete…so if you’re interested in helping out and you’re familiar with Unity3D, send me a message and let’s collaborate! email me at sidcarden@gmail.com
by Eric
Keeping Our Games Focused
Sep 11, 2011 at 6:23 am in post by Eric
There are a few very strong examples of successful behavior-altering games. Jane McGonigal talks about “Jane the Concussion Slayer,” the game she developed and used to overcome the depression brought about by mild head trauma. It is easy to be inspired by her story, and want to build on it. “Well,” thinks the hopeful game designer, “why not make a game to address my injury? Better yet, why not make one to encompass illnesses, too? All ailments? I know, it should encourage general wellness!”
The trouble with this kind of thinking is that it makes the game design much, much harder. Each generalization makes the game less able to focus on specifics of the problem it is trying to address. When specifics cannot be included, the four components of a game laid out in Reality is Broken must be made more general as well.
Some games try to work by providing nothing more than a framework: Set your own goals, perhaps in one broad area such as health, and receive points when you feel you have succeeded. The trouble is, such a general approach makes rules (that is, arbitrary and voluntary restrictions) much harder to include, and tends to lack feedback beyond that coming from the player.
“Gamification” of reality is still in its infancy. The word isn’t even in my browser’s spellcheck dictionary. In order to really build up the credibility and skills which will help make the truly widespread and world-changing games, focusing on small, well-targeted games is very valuable.
I encourage anyone who is considering aspects of the world that could be improved with gameful ideas to think about how to start out with goals for games that can really fully apply the four components of a game. There are a lot of us, and our numbers are growing. We can all specialize on specific aspects of the world we have particular skill or interest in improving, and we will still cover a lot of ground. As more people learn from gameful ideas, and the early adopters become more practiced, the scope of reality-augmenting games will know no bounds.
by Nathan Maton
Revel Game Design Challenge
Aug 23, 2011 at 6:59 pm in post by Nathan Maton
We’re excited to introduce the Gameful community to Revel- a new platform for new, fun, and worldchanging experiences in public space.Revel works by giving players challenges- short sets of instructions that facilitate actions or experiences– based on their interests and goals. Challenges can be performed alone or in groups, with friends or with strangers.
We at Revel would like to extend a special invitation to the Gameful community by inviting you to shape the Revel app. We’re currently looking for challenges to feature, especially missions related to the fields of: photography, exploring, neighbors & networks, storytelling, fitness training, games, and appreciation. Challenges selected for the Revel app will be performed by thousands of people worldwide. We’ve also got $20,000 in cash prizes to give away, too.
Got an idea? You can enter your challenge(s) here!
Just like how Gameful challenges have criteria, there’s a recipe for writing a good Revel challenge. That means that the best challenges will give participants unprecedented social experiences in public space while deepening connections between challenge authors, participants, bystanders, and their cities.
We’d love to see any challenge that:
1. Helps people discover public spaces and their city’s hidden potential for fun.
2. Creatively re-imagines boring, mundane, or everyday experiences.
3. Builds in social support, by way of cheering, back-up singing, hi-fives, etc., as a way to encourage participants to courageously carry out challenges.
4. Improves players’ health or overall quality of life.
5. Strengthens relationships between neighbors and community-members. You can see some examples of challenges here.
We look forward to reading (and participating in) your awesome challenges! If you’ve got any questions (or if you’d just like to say hello), drop me a line at sarah@getrevel.com.
Gamefully yours,
Sarah
P.S.- Gameful Exclusive: Thanks to those of you who have already submitted your challenges to Revel for our August 1st deadline! While our submission editors are currently reviewing all entries, it’s not too late to get in on some awesome cash prizes. Starting this month, Revel is giving away a $500 each month to the authors of the most awesome challenges for public space. The submission deadline for the next award cycle is 12:00am PST on September 1st.
What are you waiting for? Get crackin’!
by BuffyB
Introducing the Gameful Urgent Evoke Monsters (GUEM) Team
Apr 13, 2011 at 11:54 pm in post by BuffyB
Hearty Greetings Fellow Monsters
As team leader, it is with great pride and pleasure I present to you the mighty GUEMs who have signed up to be trained as MegaHero Social Innovators by playing Urgent Evoke Season 1.5 as a team.
What started as a hunch that there might be some interest if I applied to Evoke to enter a team of Gameful Monsters has exceeded beyond my dreams; we represent 18 countries covering 6 continents. Exciting potential!
It is a diverse team with many challenges, and I think it’s quite fun we’re playing a game within a game within a game. Between the Treats and Runes and GUEMGummies we are on our way to, not just learning how to “think global act local”, but will make change in the world towards good in life for all; all actions, especially small individual actions count. Wonderful!
We will be MegaHero Social Innovators and for this we have Jane McGonigal and her team behind the scenes to thank for Evoke and Gameful. Jane is changing the way people think about gamers and her aspirations are for someone to win the Nobel Prize for making a game. What an opportunity for everyone in Gameful and won’t that be something! Thank you Jane!
On behalf of the GUEMs, I would like to thank all the Monsters for their patience at posts not specific to the game here but we need to remain to fulfill our agreement that we are from Gameful. Thank you for your support and please do follow us in our group:
http://gameful.org/groups/urgent-evoke-monsters/forum/
Please join me in a global standing ovation to cheer our Monsters on.
The Network is alive and this is no game.
GAMEFUL URGENT EVOKE MONSTERS TEAM ~ Sorted by Continent/Country/Agent Name
| Continent | Country | Agent Name
Bold = MegaHero |
Gameful ID |
| Africa | Morocco | Michele Baron | @norabele |
| Africa | South Africa | Pienette Loubser | @plushpuppet |
| Asia | India | A.V. Koshy | @koshy |
| Asia | India | Swati Padmanabhan | @waterfall |
| Asia | Nepal | Niraj Prasad Koirala | @nirajji30 |
| Asia | Philippines | Isidor Cardenas | @pandaryll |
| Australia and Oceania | Australia | Aaron Poeze | @argent |
| Australia and Oceania | New Zealand | Robin Hughes | @swingkid |
| Europe | France | Jane Dodds | @iane |
| Europe | Holland | Thys van der Veer | @thysvanderveer |
| Europe | Italy | Betsy Pool | @imaginebp |
| Europe | Italy | Dario Solina | @obi1 |
| Europe | Italy | Giacomo | @giacomo |
| Europe | Spain | Valentina Maini | @valentinam |
| Europe | United Kingdom | Gerasimos | @gerasimos |
| Europe | United Kingdom | Morag | @m0rag |
| North America | Canada | Buffy B | @buffyb |
| North America | Canada | Nathan Budd | @nibudd |
| North America | Mexico | Julio Vazquez | @vexelius |
| North America | USA | Alexander James Fairman | @indigocaptain |
| North America | USA | Alice | @iamalice |
| North America | USA | Angela D’Alessandro- Whiting | @angellou16 |
| North America | USA | Blanche Yanecek | @yanecek |
| North America | USA | Christopher Dugan | @vermithrx |
| North America | USA | Denise Harrison | @ronnie |
| North America | USA | Gwenette Writer Sinclair | @gwenette |
| North America | USA | Jeremy Graeme | @jeremygraeme |
| North America | USA | John M. Quick | @john |
| North America | USA | Joyce Bettencourt | @joyce |
| North America | USA | Kirsen Miguel | @iam1010 |
| North America | USA | Marti McGinnis | @ponyxpress |
| North America | USA | Michael Bright | @mmbright |
| North America | USA | Mike Matessa | @mmatessa |
| North America | USA | N Vorbrich | @nvorbrich |
| North America | USA | Nathan Maton | @nathanmaton |
| North America | USA | Peggie Scott | @peggiescott |
| North America | USA | Renne Emiko | @renneemiko |
| North America | USA | Ryan Meyers | @sreyemnayr |
| North America | USA | Sandra Sutton Andrews | *Delayed |
| North America | USA | Scott Foust | @sfoust |
| North America | USA | Teal | @teal |
| (North America) | (USA) | (Teri Lizakowski Inactive) | (@worldismygarden) |
| South America | Bolivia | Ternura Rojas | @hseqagent |
| South America | Peru | Louis Wong | @wongcito |
A team roster with full links to Evoke profiles will be posted in the GUEM group soon.
BuffyB, Team Leader, Mentor and MegaHero Social Innovator
Urgent Evoke Unit 1 ~ GUEM Team, the best team ever!
http://www.gameful.org http://www.urgentevoke.com
by David
My thought on gaming
Mar 14, 2011 at 12:51 pm in post by David
in and yet it comes down to playing games to solve these issues. It’s strange
when someone says; I’m playing a game which is changing the world. Personally I
feel gaming is one of the best things that’s happened to us. I feel the
positives outnumber the negatives if played the right way.
We’ve all played games in our childhood. I remember playing Mario brothers day in and day out without getting bored of the
game. It had a certain hook which still amuses me. It was one of the most
successful games of its time.
Gaming is something we do to pass time or as a stress buster. Presently games such as Farmville, Cityville
and of course world of Warcraft are “in the scene” and no doubt I’m a big fan.
The forms of games vary but the results are on the same note. A good game helps
you get into it just the right amount and not get you addicted to it. The game
should keep you eager to come back and play again, moving forward – learning
something along the way which leads up to an epic win in both worlds.
Gaming is a born instinct; don’t we tend to talk most things we do as a challenge? The feeling
of competition is born in healthy gaming. I recall playing a list of games such
as cricket, football, hockey etc. With my elder cousin on the terrace of my apartment and it got pretty competitive
each time. Now when I look back it helped improve many skills. Till today I
love playing sport, football is my favorite. There is something about the game
that pulls you in over time.
At the end of the day the spirit of gaming is inside each and every one of us. And being a
part of gameful has given me that little kick to put in a helping hand to make
the world a better place through gaming.
by Marc
We are looking for some final seed Investors to start Game Development of our 3D iOS Monster Collection Game.
Mar 1, 2011 at 8:12 am in post by Marc
the title says it all, We(Overclock Industries) are just about ready to start Development of our 3D Monster Collection and Battle Game for iOS devices. We need a bit more financial backing from a few more seed investors and we will be ready to go. We plan to have a playable early version of the game ready by early to mid Summer if we can start soon, From there we will post our project on Kickstarter.com for some final version & Web Systems funding which they were kind enough to Pre-Approve for us. Im going to give a brief description of everything the Game is about below, some things still need to be left out however due to legal risk with Intellectual Property protection of our game.
This game is a 3D Monster collection and battle game unlike any other, All monsters will be Animated and rendered in 3D, We are aiming to give a good game like this geared for an older age group, we are staying away from the pokemon look and feel, most of our our monsters will be grittier and a nice medium between realistic and cartoon in coloration and texture. You will be able to care for and battle/train these monsters Online or Offline, We will offer competitive online play in the form of rankings and tournaments as well. Our battle-system will be a Live-Action battle-system which has never before been used or seen in a game.This is unfortunately one of those things I can’t go into great detail about, How you aquire the monsters is another one of those things you will just have to wait and see for =P, However I will say that the game is played in a 1st person perspective in the sense of play style *it isnt some weird FPS/Monster collection mash up lol, although that might be cool, it would’nt work on iOS*, We want this to feel real, Like YOU are the player and they are YOUR monsters, not like you are the puppet master of a character in a game where you only get to watch them be awesome and have all these cool monsters. Anyways, thats the basic idea of the game, I hope you guys like it and now onto what it will take to make this happen.
We are looking at needing about $25,000 to $50,000 more before we will start development. The reason such a large range is there is because $25,000 is the minimum before we will start and $50,000 will bring us to our investment cap we have set and will allow us to speed the process a bit and put out a more refined version much closer to the final stage before we place the project on kickstarter.com, and all that money will all be used to develop the Game and help promote it to a few communities so we can get a large public community involved during the development process.
Anyone who is interested in Investing in the game or anyone who may want to point us in the direction of someone who may be interested please email me at the contact below, All Investors will be granted shares in our company or a return on investment agreement will be worked out and we will have legal papers written up for anyone involved, for the most part we will take any amount of investment that is realistic, We don’t mind writing up deals for smaller investments but it does cost us a little bit to have all the legal papers written up by our lawyer so unfortunately we cant accept investments of less then $250, HOWEVER, we can and will accept donations of ANY dollar amount and as a thank you we will give All donators a special monster in-game that we will be custom made just for seed donators and seed investors. we will also include your name in the credits of the game . All investors will have the option to sign a Non-Disclosure agreement with us, If they do they will be granted detailed information on our development as we progress and I will personally keep you up to date. Your name will also be included in our credits as an investor and finally you will receive the donator/Investor Monster, and for anyone who is generous enough to invest $250 you will get all prior mentioned benefits and a Second Collectors Monster that will Only be available to Seed investors. Investments of $500 or more will receive the All previously mention benefits and Early Beta access to the Game where you will be a huge part of aiding us in Game refinement while being able to see the game grow and develop first hand. Finally, The first 5 people to invest $2,500 or more will receive all previously mentioned benefits. PLUS you will get the opportunity to work with our game developers and myself to Design your very own monster that you will receive in game, this monster will be based entirely off of your own design, you will then be given 2 options,
1) You and ONLY you will receive the one of a kind custom monster or
2) If you want we will allow others to get the monster in-game as a very rare monster and it will state on its description that you discovered it, and you will receive it as well being the first to have it.
We decided to offer these perks as an added thank you to all contributors big and small, We hope you like the idea of the perks and we are open to any ideas anyone may have. We hope we can build up our final funding requirments so that we may bring this game to you and allow everyone to enjoy playing the game as much as we will enjoy making it.
You can Contact Me & Overclock Industries at
Overclock.Industries@gmail.com
Spelling Success Game Testing
Feb 27, 2011 at 5:35 am in post by Adithya Manjunath
I was part of a three-person team that tested the game
‘Spelling Success’, a game that has been posted as a part of the Gameful
Challenge No. 1 – http://gameful.org/groups/gameful-challenge-1-awe-inspiring-improvement-aka-make-lord-kelvin-proud/forum/topic/spelling-success/
I am going to talk about how the process of testing the game
unfolded, and what loopholes we found, along with the pros of this game.
Firstly, when we were asked to form a list of 10 words that
we found hard to spell and misspelt often, we noticed that it was hard to
simply come up with words that we found hard to spell on the spot – usually, we
come across these words only while reading something, a novel, a newspaper
article, whichever.
An easy way to get around this loophole is to create a word
bank that is classified into different difficulty levels. Having a large set of
words that people can refer to while selecting makes their job a lot easier,
and having various difficulty levels allows a wide variety of people to play
the game – be it 6-year olds, or college students!
After selecting our ten words, we learnt how to spell these
words in whatever time we had, then swapped our lists and asked each other the
spellings. There were words we spelt correctly, and there were words that we
didn’t – the latter were moved to the second list of words that were created,
for the second round of the game.
The second hitch we found with the game was that there
didn’t seem to be a proper end to the game – this was fixed by the game
creator, who decided that once both players manage to spell 15 words correctly,
they have to spell each of these words again, with a 1-minute time limit on
both players.
Although there is the problem of whether both players spell
15 words correctly at the same time, this change in the game allowed it to be a
lot more competitive, with the time limit affecting both the players’ chances
of winning the game, and hence made the game a lot more fun to play, instead of
simply going on and on – the initial rules stated that after two-three rounds,
the correct words are asked again, and whatever is spelt wrong here is moved to
the next list, and whoever spells the most words wins. The issue with that is
because the wrong words are transferred on to the next list, people might have
scores of 10/11, and 18/20, and it is sometimes tough to see who has won in
such situations.
Also, players are expected to select words that they cannot
spell, because this is for their own good, but this may not stop certain people
for whom winning is everything – they might select an easy set of words and say
that they find it tough to spell these words when in fact they don’t.
After testing the game, we talked about how rewards may make
the game more fun to play as well, but then we realized that adding rewards,
and even the suggestion of having a word bank for this game, meant that the
game loses out on its simplicity – the game was created to be played amongst
people who have trouble spelling, and all they needed was a pen and paper. The idea
of rewards and having a word bank only works if the game is to be sold as a
packed board game sort of thing – where you have rewards and bonuses, along
with having a word bank of different difficulty levels. Another way to do this
would be to have a website where the word banks are stored, and suggestions for
small rewards that can be given out, but again, this deviates from the idea
that the game only required pen and paper.
All in all, save for a few loopholes here and there, the game
most definitely helped us spell words that we had issues with, and is the sort
of game that would help students who’ve got spelling tests at school and need a
fun way to learn to spell words.
The explanation of the game in the link given talks about how the positive
emotion generated is “The happiness and
relief of learning to spell words that are generally difficult and stressful
when unable to spell them.” and that “The exasperation of being unable to spell
can be erased.” – and no one can argue with that.
I am unsure about whether this game appeals to a large variety of
people, because some people might not find spelling games fun to play – this is
why having incentives and rewards can pay off. But then comes the argument
about how this is meant to be a simple game – which is why, for now, I believe
this game should be left untouched and be played by whoever wants to play it.
